The Batman brand is in the toilet at the outset of The Dark Knight Rises, the third and most self-consciously ornate pillar of Christopher Nolan’s caped crusader resurrection trilogy. The four years since The Dark Knight have passed as eight within the city state of Gotham — one of the neater doublings in a movie inlaid with prismatic tiling — and even the mayor condemns Batman as “a murderous thug.”more »

This could be fun: "Gary Oldman has inked a deal to star opposite Joel Kinnaman in MGM’s remake of Robocop. [...] Kinnaman (The Killing) plays the title character, a cop named Alex Murphy who is brought back from the brink of death and turned into a cyborg police officer. Oldman will play Norton, the scientist who creates Robocop and finds himself torn between the ideals of the machine trying to rediscover its humanity and the callous needs of a corporation." [THR]

Hollywood's biggest (and possibly most anticlimactic) night is upon us, which can only mean one thing: Movieline's third annual Oscar Liveblog Extravaganza! Join your Movieline editors and loyal readers as we parse the Academy Awards to within an inch of their glamorous lives. The fun begins on the red carpet at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, with the Oscarcast proper commencing at 8:30 p.m ET/5:30 p.m. PT. And in any case, keep abreast of this year's Oscar class with our commentary after the jump.more »

It'll cost you, but hey! Good cause! "In conceiving the actor’s characterization of the iconic character, Mr. Oldman conferred with director Tomas Alfredson and costume designer Jacqueline Durran over just which would be the right pair of glasses for Smiley to wear throughout. He found the desired pair in the U.S. and brought them to England for filming there. The glasses up for auction are the ones that Smiley acquires and begins wearing in the film, after the prologue and flashbacks, for the duration of the 1970s-era story as he tracks a double agent compromising Britain’s highest espionage ranks." [Charitybuzz]

Focus Features and the good folks at WNYC are going all out for first-time Oscar nominee Gary Oldman, lining up a six-film retrospective of the actor's work that will culminate Feb. 8 in Manhattan with a screening and Oldman Q&A for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The best part: It's free. Which naturally means you'd better act fast to reserve your seats.more »

This reaction quote just in from Gary Oldman, a deserving first-time Oscar nominee for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: "This afternoon in Berlin I have learned that I was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Actor. You may have heard this before, but it has never been truer than it is for me today, it is extremely humbling, gratifying, and delightful to have your work recognized by the Academy, and to join the celebrated ranks of previous nominees and colleagues. Amazing." Meanwhile, how is viciously smacked-down Oscar snubbee Albert Brooks doing?more »

Give the Academy some credit: They made awards season fun for a little bit longer. At least my mind was blown this morning as AMPAS president Tom Sherak and Jennifer Lawrence announced The Tree of Life, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Demián Bichir and a few other shocks among the 2012 Oscar nominations.more »

We're a little more than half a day away from learning who and what will compete for the 84th annual Academy Awards -- an elite class through which Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics had combed for four months in its fail-safe, fool-proof and bracingly handsome Oscar Index. This calls for one last sweep through each of the Academy's categories (with the exception of live-action, animated and documentary short, about which even our pointiest-headed Oscar wonk cannot speak yet with authority); check our team's work against your own, and drop back by Movieline tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. ET/5:30 a.m. PT as we deliver nominations, reactions, analysis and more.more »

After premiering this past weekend before Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows screenings, the latest official trailer for The Dark Knight Rises has hit the Internet today. Depicting a Gotham City eight years after the events in 2008's The Dark Knight, the trailer teases societal upheaval, (literally) explosive football plays and best of all, two new villains: Anne Hathaway's Catwoman (or at least, Selina Kyle) and Tom Hardy's mysterious, mumbling Bane. Let's parse the trailer the only way we know how: By the numbers.

At the center of Tomas Alfredson's marvelously taut espionage thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (based on the John Le Carré novel previously adapted into a celebrated 1979 British miniseries) is an unusually understated turn by Gary Oldman as George Smiley, a recently retired career spy of few words quietly trying to uncover a mole within British intelligence. Oldman acknowledges a departure of sorts from the wild, often manic characters he built much of his career on -- Sid Vicious, Count Dracula, Beethoven, DEA agent Stansfield of Leon, to name a few. Some of Oldman's best-known roles are, as he described to Movieline this week in Los Angeles, more rock 'n' roll. "Smiley," he explained, "is jazz."

This won't come nearly close to matching the poetry witnessed throughout last week's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy premiere giveaway contest (or the tense, masterful symphony of the film itself, chock-full of your favorite British thesps and "Pillow lipped chameleons"), but: "Thanks to all who played/With odes to Tinker, Tailor.../Winners after the jump!"

Attention all spy genre enthusiasts, Cold War buffs and Gary Oldman fans: Movieline is giving away three (3) pairs of VIP tickets to the Los Angeles premiere of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to the trio of readers who come up with the most clever haiku poems dedicated to one of the film's stars.